Labour suggests coding as 'new language' for students to learn

If the Labour Party is elected to a second term it would work to ensure that coding becomes another language Maltese students could choose to learn, according to Prime Minister Joseph Muscat.

“We want coding to become Malta’s fourth language,” he said. “We need to have a generation leaving secondary school for whom it is second nature,” he said.

Muscat was speaking at a Q&A session organised by Forum Zghazagh Laburisti, the Labour Party’s youth wing, where he said that Maltese youths who wished to learn a new language would be given a voucher to help them study abroad.

“We have an English language industry in Malta and this causes one to wonder, why don’t we encourage our youngsters to travel and learn other languages,” said Muscat.

The Prime Minister was asked about opportunities in the pipeline for Gozitan youths as well as employment in general.

he said the government had plans to increase jobs further in all sectors, with investment continuing to come Malta’s way, including in the financial services sector, which he said would continue to grow despite fears that its days were numbers.

On Gozo, he said that there has never been as much employment in Gozo as there is today, and he noted that the Gotizan economy had in fact grown faster than the Maltese economy.

Muscat said that the Labour Party in government would introduce measures to encourage business to move to Gozo and to facilitate companies to implement teleworking programs, rather than paying people to live in Gozo, as the Nationalist Party was proposing.

“We will reimburse 75% of the costs associated with implementing teleworking, and an additional €10,000 for every worker,” he said.

Moreover, he said companies moving their operation to Gozo would be benefitting from a three-year period where they would not be obliged to pay tax on their operations.

He said that the Labour Party had many defects, however deceiving people was not one of them.

“What we say we are going to do, we will do,” he added.

The present government, he said, was one that was more dynamic than previous governments.

“We have the energy to get things done,” he said, pointing to the reduction in electricity tariffs and the construction of a new power station, which he said had left many abroad, amazed that it was accomplished in only four years.

Yannick joined MaltaToday as a journalist in 2016. His main areas of interest are politics...